Cloud Atlas

Content Warning: This section depicts slavery and discusses racism, death by suicide, and sexual abuse.

Ewing completes his interrupted entry about Rafael, noting his “luminous beauty.” The crew aboard The Prophetess spots land. They anchor in Bethlehem Bay. Ewing, Goose, and the other passengers deboard and talk to the local colonial rulers. The captain invites Goose and Ewing to present themselves as God-fearing men to the local preacher who governs the colony. They discuss setting up trade routes and missionary work. Ewing, still feeling sick, notices that the local people are all “puffing on a pipe” (501). He realizes that the white people have deliberately caused the locals to have addictions to tobacco. Since the locals have no need for money, the white people have created an incentive to get the locals to work for them. Smoking is taught to the local children in school.

Ewing attends a dinner with other rich, white people. Preacher Horrox, a missionary and the head of the colony, talks at length about his civilization theories. He believes in “Civilization’s Ladder,” which is ordained by God and ranks white people on the highest rung because of their “Aryan bravery.” Goose gently mocks the idea, suggesting that white people’s greed and remorselessness has allowed them to subjugate other races.